> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would like to ask you just one> question: _Why_ can't a registrar be expected to screen potential or> actual spammers? If registrars started doing that, they'd be heros> in the eyes of most netters. PAT]

Asking a registrar to be responsible for what an internet site does is
not like asking a landlord to be responsible for what his tenants do
in his apartment. (If a landlord knows his tenant is breaking the law
by growing pot, the landlord can break a lease.)

The registrar provides a pointer, like a signpost to Michael Jackson's
house. No one forces you to go there. What goes on there is not the
fault of the sign.

> _Why_ can't a registrar be expected to screen potential or actual> spammers?

Because they have no control. I can register 100 domain names and have
them all point to the same server. The server is where the bad stuff
is done, just like the alleged Neverland. They have not control, it is
the _hosting_ site that _might_ have the hardware the spammers rely
on.

Note that anyone with an internet connection can be their own host. In
that case they need an ISP to connect through. Then you might ask how
can ISPs screen people. Well, they can't. How would they determine
what you plan on doing? They can enforce the service agreement and
terminate you, but only if you do something bad.

What needs to be fixed is the email systems need to be able to put a
wrapper around messages identifying the true source and make it
impossible to spoof return addresses. Then spammers can be located.

Brad Houser

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But landlords can (or not, as they
wish) choose to rent an apartment to someone. If they get bad vibes
about it, prior to rental, then they just don't rent. Landlords can
also consult credit bureaus to detirmine the wisdom of renting (or
not) to someone. As long as the landlord does not discriminate for
various illegal reasons (for example, the proposed tenant's race or
religion or sex or age) he is free to rent or not as he chooses.
Of course, greedy landlords, like greedy registrars rent as much and
as often as they can, saying we will let the future take care of
itself. I used to know a landlord of furnished apartments in Chicago.
Her philosophy was 'the best apartment in this complex is the one
which is _vacant_, because I know what is going on there; nothing.
PAT]